Epilogue for an Exile - Last of the Handmaidens
by DavestWriterDavidson
Summary: Set two years after the events of Knights of the Old Republic II, the Exile, Ramsi Tennet, has gone after Revan in the Unknown Regions and has left his companions behind- but what has become of them? And what happens to them when the Exile they were so attached to meets with destiny halfway across the galaxy?


_Last of the Handmaidens_

Brianna's Story

_**Editor's Note: This is the third in a series of epilogues following the main characters set two years after the events of Knights of the Old Republic II. The order in which they should be read are Visas, Atton, Brianna, Mira, and Kreia, but feel free to peruse them at your own leisure. Safe travels, and good luck.**_

Focusing on the echoes, Brianna, the last sister of the handmaidens and a founding member of the New Jedi Order, felt the waves ebb and flow around her. The Force was a powerful tool, but she was at its mercy, and she let it carry her through the galaxy and connect with each planet, each individual, however briefly, before moving on again.

She was searching.

Searching for a man she hadn't felt in days.

Searching for a man she hadn't seen for even longer.

Searching, perhaps in misguided faith.

She was searching, nonetheless.

Ramsi Tennet had been gone for too long without contact, without so much as even a blip in the Force that she could feel or follow. It was unnerving, moreso than she'd anticipated. Each day she reached out to see if she could find him, but he was still beyond her reach- shrouded in the shadows of the Unknown Regions.

Finally, she pulled herself out of the sea of the Force's influence and stood up from her meditations. It was useless to persist in these efforts any further for today- her time would be better spent elsewhere in the Academy, such as the under-construction library. There was still so much to catalog, to note, and to file away, and the duty had fallen to her in Atris' self-imposed exile.

When she exited her room, she felt a warm air flow past her- indicating the thermal shielding had been turned on in preparation for another storm. However, for a fleeting moment, it brought her back to another place, another time, in her life.

The Exile fought poorly, but had great heart. His next moves were obvious, and Brianna easily parried each one.

_Kick._

_Forearm._

_Elbow._

Jump, block, dodge.

Knife hand to ribs, knife hand to throat, sweep to unbalanced leg.

Even with devastating blows, the Exile continued to fight. His stance, his form, and his discipline spoke to his character. He was faster to think through an action than he was to perform, and he struck out with peace instead of anger.

In the cargo hold, so close to the engines, the room was stuffy, arid, and their sparring only continued to elevate the temperature. Sweat dripped off his brow, and his heartbeat continued to race.

As the Exile struck out again, Brianna let her Echani training take over- each move flowed through to the next without effort. However, she felt excitement rising in her chest, something she hadn't felt in combat before. The Exile's emotions were contagious, and dangerous.

_Punch._

_Dash._

_One, two attempt._

Block, turn, block and duck.

Attack left thigh, kick to ribs, close distance to limit options.

The thrill of the fight blinded her to the Exile's movements, and her return kick to his ribs missed. She couldn't let herself fall prey to his next moves out of a simple hormonal response. Brianna was better than this.

He was testing her, always holding back even if it was against Echani tradition. He did not want to harm her, and that would be his downfall- but why did he allow this weakness? What good could come from it? More disturbing, it was also a method that was impossible to reconcile with everything Atris had told her of the Exile- his mercy was not a trait of the Sith, but that of the Jedi.

So caught up in her thoughts, she barely noticed the Exile striking again.

_Swiping kick._

_Elbow to chest._

_Attempt to set up an armbar._

Each move landed in due course, and Brianna felt herself slammed to the deckplates, her arm locked in tightly between the Exile's legs. Unexpectedly, he'd won- despite all her training, despite his fatigue. Her shock was so profound that she almost forgot to tap out, and she could feel her nerves sending back messages of pain and annoyance at having been trapped for the prolonged duration.

The Exile helped her to her feet, still smiling the same damn smile that caused her emotions to scatter and her mind to go blank. His energy, his optimism, his spirit- she was inexplicably drawn to it, especially in moments such as this; the fresh afterglow of combat, staring into his eyes which appeared to glimmer like a fine, steel-blue mist.

"Ready to go again?" He asked.

His words snapped her back to reality, and she let the mask of the Echani fall over her again- in order to maintain her dominance, her position as the teacher in this arena. The Exile's charisma was infectious and, despite the darkness surrounding him, she was drawn to him. She could not let herself fall like this- but how could she possibly stop the inevitable?

The memory vanished, and she thought of it no further. It aroused feelings she had long since quelled, at least that's what she kept telling herself. The passion, the love, the yearning she held for Ramsi still lingered inside her, and they were feelings she couldn't ignore no matter how much she tried.

Ramsi and Brianna had shared many late nights, several long walks across the surface of Telos, and numerous days together, but no matter how close they became there would always be a barrier in place: That of the harpy, the Miraluka, Visas Marr.

Brianna drew in a deep breath, pulling the Force as deeply as it could go, before exhaling it and letting her resentment wash away with it. Visas was her friend now, and it hadn't been for lack of trying on both of their parts. Each had regarded the other with skepticism and contempt since long ago during the endless days aboard the _Ebon Hawk_, and they'd managed to build bridges that they'd both worked hard to maintain. Despite whatever feelings she harboured for Ramsi, and whatever she felt towards Visas, she had to let them go, just as Ramsi did when it came to the transgressions of those against him- whether they were Mandalorian soldiers, Sith in disguise, or the former Jedi Council.

"It's not worth holding on to the hate, it only drains the soul and the mind." Ramsi had once told her that, on their way back to Dantooine from the destruction of Malachor V, and she'd held onto it since that day- always vigilant against the feeling in any form it might choose to take.

But that lesson had come from her own mistakes, each one as fatal as the last. It had been a lesson long in the making, and had taken the entirety of their trip for her to finally learn. The memory had been finely etched into her brain, and she could still see it now…

The Exile slammed the cargo bay door controls and they sealed shut with a hiss. Brianna had her back to him, arms crossed, her resentment and contempt burning a fire in her heart that consumed everything else. When he wheeled her around, she could see the anger in his eyes- but it was mixed with a betrayal of its own that spoke volumes about his feelings.

"Why are you doing this, Brianna?" He demanded.

She shoved his hand off and broke free of the grip, regarding him with an ill-disguised measure of disdain.

"_You _figure that out yourself, Exile. I have nothing to discuss with you."

"I just fought my way through a fleet's worth of Sith and took down the most powerful Sith Lord the galaxy has ever known- I am _not _in the mood for games, Brianna. You've been so distant, so cold to me and everybody else for so long, I just want to know why. Was it Kreia? Whatever she said, you know it was all a lie- you don't have to believe her anymore."

Whether the Exile had intentionally worded his accusation that way, Brianna wasn't sure, but it was certainly the one that broke her silence. She whipped around, pitting herself eye-to-eye with him.

"It was _not _Kreia, it was _never _Kreia! You think you're not in the mood for games? I've been playing your stupid game ever since Atris ordered me to stow away here! For a short time, I let you lead me on, convinced you actually had something genuine behind your feints and your parries, but in the end all you did was deceive me for your own entertainment- lies meant to weaken me for a laugh, just like the other sisters!"

The Exile was caught off guard, and Brianna shoved him with enough force that he tripped back into the bulkhead, grabbing on to a loose pipe to keep himself upright. She advanced on him, pinning his shoulders against the wall.

"You let her poison your mind and you willingly let her take you away from me! You followed her down the dark path, with little regard for how I may have felt- even though you had already expressed your feelings for me!"

He gently touched one of her hands, a direct insult to her pride.

"Brianna, what are you talking about? All we did was-"

The realization seemed to hit him as soon as her palm did, the connecting blow cracking off like lightning and sending him stumbling away. She let him go, watched him fall before her. The Miraluka had corrupted his mind and had worked the edge off his soul, he was nothing compared to the man who she'd begun to train in the Echani arts. A failure for her failure to follow Atris' orders, just another punishment the Force had slapped in her face.

Scrambling, he extended an arm with an open palm, signaling for her to give him a moment as he instinctively tapped his cheek to assess the damage. However, the Echani Battle Mind had drifted over her mind, and she gave herself to it fully.

Grab arm, yank back, dislocate.

Bend out, strain the injury, knee to jaw.

In the instant that she yanked back on his arm, the Exile suddenly sprang to life and rolled with her, using her momentum to pull himself to his feet. Quickly, he adopted the fighting stance that he formerly used during their sessions.

"Brianna, hear me out on this." He started to say, before catching her off guard by launching into an offensive flurry.

_Punches, too many to dodge._

_Closes distance, attempts to lock in._

Although it was an unexpected move for the Exile, Brianna would no longer be distracted by his charms or her thoughts. She was an Echani warrior, and her discipline and training had honed her into the sharpest blade in the galaxy.

Accept punches, shift back and around to avoid the clinch.

Fire back with shots to mid-section, break knee from behind.

Surprisingly, the Exile countered her attempt on his knee. Instead, he rolled forward out of her reach before coming up again.

"I never meant to mislead you, what I felt for you _was _real."

"Liar!" She shouted in return, grabbing hold of his wrists and dropping to the floor, tucking her knees in and flipping him overhead.

The Exile landed with a thud and a groan, but by the time Brianna was on her feet he was already up to a knee. It appeared his senses were not as dulled as she thought, but it was only a matter of time until she bested him.

"I did and still love you, Brianna!" He shouted at her.

"You lie!"

Claw his face.

Snapback to the floor, boot to throat.

Her attack succeeded in drawing blood, her slashes leaving deep incursions on his cheeks. As she slammed down her boot, he instead caught and twisted it so she fell to the ground with him.

_Leg wrap, ankle lock._

The Exile held onto her for only a moment before she grabbed onto his exposed leg and twisted it sharply to one side, hoping to dislocate the knee. His cry of pain and release of the hold let her know all she needed to about the success of her response.

Pull up, assume mount, work from there.

Brianna whipped herself up on top, locking her thighs in tightly against the Exile's sides as she pulled herself close to him to assess where her next moves could take her.

"Brianna, please, search your feelings- you know I'm telling the truth," He pleaded, "I've always loved you, but you have to understand why I stopped trying."

Maneuver to allow scissors across throat, submission guaranteed.

Allowing herself a moment of folly before she ended the fight, she reached out to the Force to see his lies brought out into the light once and for all. What she gained in response, however, was impossible to believe.

Even the Exile couldn't hide from the Force- he was telling the truth. The Echani Battle Mind's fog drifted away, and she now saw before her not just the Exile, but the man that was Ramsi Tennet- who even in a fight for his life held to the same constraints he'd had when she trained him.

His punches were pulled, his hold on her ankle was loose, and he had fought with more passion than intelligence, even if he was inevitably going to lose.

Slowly, Brianna stood up and backed away from him.

Ramsi clawed back to the wall and pulled himself up, gingerly balancing a grotesquely bent leg. He glanced over his shoulder, his breathing heavy and his eyes mixed with a measure of fear that she hadn't seen before.

"The reason… I never pursued anything further…" He said between ragged breaths, "Was because… The moment I turned to Visas… You shut off, from me, and the world."

For a moment her thoughts raced to betrayal again, but she shunted them to the back of her mind, staring across the cargo hold at him in silence instead.

"I loved you, Brianna, I still do, but you left me first. You became as cold as Atris, and you turned away from me- refusing to speak to me, let alone see me. I agonized over the loss of your friendship, and Visas… She understood it, she helped me heal it, heal from you," Hopping on one foot, he turned towards her and took a few steps away from the wall, "Her kindness, regardless of the man I was, is something you never gave me. Visas was willing to love me unconditionally, but you… You couldn't get past the idea that I might become friends with someone who was as much a wound in the Force as I was."

"That's not true," Brianna half-whispered, "I was willing to work past it, but you left me no choice. You abandoned me, just like the Sisters, because I didn't hold to your preferences. I wasn't wounded as openly as she was, and I was afraid to lose you from the moment I first laid my eyes on you, but she was always content to serve you," Brianna let go of the wall and took a step towards him, "I wasn't, I wanted to _live_ with you."

"I never abandoned you, Brianna. Even when you refused to speak to me, I still put you on priority for missions I knew only you could handle, or in places I knew I wanted someone I could trust by my side like charging the Sith temple on Dxun, or excavating the Jedi Enclave on Dantooine. Outside of then, no matter how many times I tried, you stayed shut off from me," His tone began to raise as he stumbled another step forward, and she could hear the hurt in his voice, "How am I supposed to love someone who won't even give me the time of day?" He shouted.

Taking a defiant march forward, she shouted back at him, "You fight for them! You never pried further than a few times, letting me go without so much as a real fight! I was hurting, I was afraid, and you were slipping through my fingers and acting as if nothing was wrong! How did you expect me to respond, Ramsi?"

Forcing himself towards her, Ramsi cried back a rebuttal, "I didn't know that, Brianna! I knew things weren't fine but you weren't giving me any help. I tried, I really tried to patch things up but I couldn't find a way- especially when I couldn't figure out _why _you were hurt! It pained me to walk past the cargo bay, it hurt to fight beside you, and it was torture to be so close yet so far from the first woman I loved since the Wars!"

They were only centimeters apart, having met in the middle of the room, and the Force felt as if it were on fire around them. The room, existence itself, seemed to crumble to their combined wills and faded into the background of the universe until it was only them among the stars, yelling at each other over a lifetime of hurt.

"I had lost you to a woman who went against everything I believed in, and I watched her warp you! I saw your skin grow pale and cracked, I felt a darkness around the both of you that you were oblivious to and seemed to block you from all of my screams and pleas for you to come back! You willingly gave up the light, gave up me, gave up us, all for some Sith whore!"

"Visas gave me love I've never felt, gave me a peace I'd been searching for since the beginning of the Mandalorian Wars, and brought me back to the Force, but make no mistake," He lowered his face to hers and became deathly quiet, "Every action I took was my own, and I stopped myself from the dark side's allures. I did only what I thought was right or what was best for my friends, and sometimes things didn't work out well, and sometimes I did things out of my own desires, but I never gave in to the dark side. I couldn't hear your pleas because they were silent, lost in the manipulations of a Sith Lord who used you against me, used all your unbridled and useless rage against all of us, to fulfill her plans."

It was meant to hurt, meant to drive deeper into her heart than any dagger, and it did.

"Brianna, it's not worth holding on to the hate. It never was. It only drains your mind and your soul. As much as Visas lead me down a path _you_ couldn't follow, your rage lead you down a path _I _couldn't follow. Your emotions, no matter how potent they are, shouldn't be used against you- and rage is the easiest weapon to turn back in on someone. I wanted to love you, but you've been shrouded in the dark side for too long," He placed his hands on her arms, "Please, come back to me. Let go of your hate, let go of your contempt, and come back. I want the Brianna I know, not the Echani Handmaiden you thought you were. The Brianna I know may have been quiet but she was strong, she may have been hurt but she was disciplined enough to keep it in check. The Handmaiden can't get past that one moment in time, she clings to her hatred because it's all she has left. You don't have to, Brianna."

After staring at his chest for so long, she finally lifted her head and, through tear-soaked eyes, gazed upon him. The Exile no longer, but Ramsi Tennet. Her friend, who loved her deeper than anybody ever had, and was willing to forgive her- even now, even with all she had done. When her vision cleared for just a moment, she saw there were tears already mixing with the blood on his cheeks.

"We've both made mistakes, Brianna, but please move past them with me. I can't go on without you by my side, whether you're my friend or not."

Together, they embraced, and broke down in each other's arms.

Hours later, they'd emerge from the cargo bay- a galaxy's guilt and regret lifted from their shoulders.

It was a difficult memory, but one she cherished. What happened in the cargo bay during those hours was something only they knew about, and an experience only they would share- as unique to them as was each lightsaber crystal. She smiled at the thought, and began to turn back to her quarters to listen to the message Ramsi had sent her before he'd left for the Unknown Regions, when suddenly she was assailed by a punch to her gut that left her momentarily sprawled on the ground.

Something felt as if it had impaled itself between her shoulder blades, and she cried out in pain- but when she reached back she found nothing.

Her Echani training allowed her enough strength to force herself up off the ground, but she immediately fell into the nearest wall out of exhaustion.

It was then that she recognized that was she was in the Council Chambers, where Mira, the bounty hunter, was standing with Memora, Ramsi's daughter. Mira was looking at her, confused as to what was happening, when suddenly Memora erupted into a screaming fit that threatened to burst both of their eardrums.

Brianna stumbled to Mira and took Memora in her arms, hoping to calm the child from whatever disturbance in the Force had caused it, when she suddenly began to feel very cold- and very alone.

It was as if a light had blinked out from the galaxy, replaced by a bone-chilling cold that rivaled that of Hoth. Brianna didn't know what to make of it, but it wasn't helping her efforts to calm Memora.

Atton Rand, their one-time pilot, fumbled his way in, clutching the wall, and briefly glanced at them before making his way over and taking Memora in his arms- as if he'd have a better chance.

When Visas appeared, she scrambled for her daughter and held her with such tightness against her chest that Brianna was afraid that she would crush her. As she reached out to hold Visas' arm to comfort her, it was as if she saw dark, black tendrils begin to snake their way down from the ceiling and ensnare the two in their grip. Instinctively, she reached for the lightsaber at her side when Atton asked Visas what was happening.

The Miraluka looked up with such speed that her hood fell back, revealing the scarred wounds inflicted upon her by Darth Nihilus. They were ghastly, and still shocked Brianna no matter how many times she saw them. The two words that followed though would make the sight pale in comparison to the horror she would soon feel.

"He's dead."


End file.
